


Inventions

by Ghostcat



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Other, POV First Person, POV Second Person, Tumblr Prompt, outtake from Pense-bête, reverse POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 11:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19130782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat
Summary: Other-half glimpses from a long night or, prompts fromPiano Sonata in G Major, "Pense-bête". Originally posted on Tumblr.





	1. A piacere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheisraging](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheisraging/gifts), [stormyks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormyks/gifts).



> Thank you to all of you that read and support this series. Your patience will be rewarded soon, I hope.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The unremarkable hours prior to a performance followed by the turn. (Elio reverse POV from Andante)

   I lean forward, resting my forehead against my knees and letting my fingertips trail along the faded dressing-room carpet. “How is the crowd?”

   “Upper East Side-y.”

   “This is the Upper _West_ Side.”

   Dafna sighs. “I know, but they look like their chauffeurs drove them here from across the park.”

   My eyes stay closed as I listen to Dafna rubbing at a spot on her skirt; the rough attack of wet wipe against wool is stark against the quiet.

   “I should tell you,” she says, voice wavering with the effort. “There is one attendee with promise, like a storybook prince, but in reverse. Everyone is entering the venue, and he’s facing the other way—I can’t tell if he wants to bolt, or if he’s just waiting for rescue.”

   “Go talk to him then, get his number,” I say, voice muffled against the fabric of my trousers. “Save him from his misery.”

   “Nah, he’s not my type at all—too tall, too handsome—but he’s certainly yours.”

   “Because he’s too tall and too handsome?”

   Sitting up brings a head rush, and also exhaustion. Sometimes, the promise of new bodies is no incentive. Not that Dafna cares to know; she’s crossed her arms and her legs, at the ankles, genteel opposition squared. It amuses her to think I’m insatiable when really, most of the time, it’s the distraction, not the promise, that I seek. I’m not awake enough for more.

   The heater pipes clang suddenly and there’s sharpness to her smile. “No, he’s your type because he’s clearly indecisive–and nothing thrills you like a question mark.”

   I’m not in the business to deny truths, no matter how ungenerous; so I shrug, humming against my lips in careless agreement. “Does that mean you like them short and ugly?”

   “I like strong noses and thin frames.”

   “Ah, yes.”

   The crackling house intercom buzzes to life, announcing fifteen minutes. I shake out my hands and close my eyes again.

 

* * *

   

   Of course, all of it is a prelude.

   The child seated directly in front of my bench never once looks up from her book, but keeps turning the pages, rapidly, too rapidly, like a tiny demonic speed reader. Periodically she flips to the front and pauses before returning to her previous spot. I spend the duration of the Schubert _Fantasie_ trying to catch the title and eventually, do— _Murder on the Orient Express_ by Agatha Christie. How does one compete with a snowy potboiler? By bashing out a furious interpretation of the _Heroic Polonaise_ until the target finally looks up.

   The frustration evaporates easily. The little girl, Ana, has got a missing front tooth, and a quiet, tissue-paper-thin voice. After the show she asks for my autograph, while her mother shuffles awkwardly behind her. Ana plays the oboe, but assures me she isn’t very good. She likes my socks. And the Chopin. It makes her think of happy shouting.

   I tell them to wait for me by the stage door and return to the dressing room to grab some CDs and a Sharpie. I’m like this, lighthearted and occupied, when I encounter Oliver again, standing on a checkered marble floor, smiling with a queasy mix of trepidation and warmth. Eyes the same, hair different, beard, in a suit. Coat, scarf. Beautiful as ever.

   Elio, Oliver, Oliver, Elio. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when I see his face. So easy, it almost seems rehearsed.

   Clem steals me away to shake hands and pose for photos; and before rushing back to him, l find Ana and her mother. After scrawling a dedication on one of the CDs, I almost sign it with his name, then pause. It’s the brain, ever helpful. The body too; my hand writing down who it wants most. The ceaseless reminder. Get back, get back, get back. To the prince, to the answer.

   “What’s my name again?” I murmur, embarrassed and a little lost but laughing too. It’s early still. There’s time.


	2. A refrain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment of decision. (Oliver reverse POV from Rondo)

   It wasn’t his lips, the give of his shoulder under your palm or all that silky mumbling about poetry, the beauty of his eyes or the breathy open-mouthed laugh. Those were enticements to be sure, singular and gorgeously familiar, but ultimately nudges only, not the necessary push. No, the tipping point came later—when you were alone outside his house watching the snow spiraling under the streetlight, your best dress shoes getting ruined, understanding, with silent reverence, that Fortuna had handed you the answer in the form of shitty weather and a couple of slashed tires.

   There was your decision. You would stay. You might touch. You could allow the past to meet the present. If not immediately then in another hour or two; days, weeks. It was always going to be this, so you might as well relax, give.

 

* * *

   

   Elio skid-slides from the kitchen, holding an enormous ashtray as if it were an infant and cooing to it mindlessly as if he were trying to soothe it to sleep. It nearly makes you piss your pants with laughter and he stares at you, mouth hanging open, serious and affronted, completely oblivious to the joint dangling wetly from the corner of his mouth.

   “What?” he shrugs, in that absurdly French way, pointing his chin at you.

   “Nothing.”

   You love when he forgets to be sultry and precise, forgets that you are a target to be acquired. Not that you don’t love his deliberate, focused pursuit too. Only that it’s sadder now. It makes him seem unaware that you are already his.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to sheisraging and stormyks for the prompts.
> 
> Special thank you to CCS for beta reading.


End file.
